What are home buyers really looking for?

If you have the answer to this question… you probably are close to
selling your house.

Everyone is concerned about selling, but nobody asks what buyers want.

If business owners knew exactly what their customers wanted, they would
eliminate all the extra stock that they carry… and make great profits.

Why? Because they would carry and sell only what the customers want.

We can apply the same principle to home sellers.

Give the home buyers what they want

Understanding why buyers buy homes is crucial.

Wal*mart understands this. And this is why they keep asking their customers
what they want. And once they know, they give it to them. They do not assume what the customers want, they ask them.

Be the buyer

What buyers say about their reasons to buy may seem adequate. But that
is far from enough. You must discover the real motivations behind the reasons
they verbalize and the subtler benefits that buyers really want. Only then
can you know what they want.

Or… Just put yourself in the shoes of the buyer!

The profile of home buyers and sellers compiled by the National Association
of Realtors in 2000 shows that neighborhood and (or)
price are the most
important factors when it comes to a housing change.

But the profile also shows that many specific reasons point to these factors.
The main one is the desire to move from rental to ownership (34 percent).
The next one is the need for more space due to marriage or a growing family
(18 percent). Following these main reasons is job/corporate relocation or
a new job in another area (12 percent).

Logic and common sense take a back seat to emotions

Without a doubt, reasons to buy a house are usually logical and express
common sense. Strangely enough, logic and common sense explain only 15 to
25 percent of what really triggers a specific purchase: emotion accounts
for the other 75 to 85 percent.

So reasons aside, you must learn to read between the
lines to figure out the emotions that drive your potential buyers.

In other words, you must understand that when a buyer says he wants certain
physical features, what he really wants are the benefits
those features will provide.

For example, a declared desire for good schools is almost always prompted
by the buyer’s love and concern for his children, low crime by a desire
for family safety, a burglar alarm by a desire for even more security and
so on.

The wish for other physical features may be stimulated by desires for
such other benefits as prestige (a big house), privacy (fence), economy
(saving money), value (making money), comfort, aesthetics and/or health.

Find out what your potential buyers really want, not just what they tell
you upfront. That way you will be able to avoid making wrong assumptions,
save everyone lots of time and effort, and be well on your way to achieving
a positive outcome.